Yves here. Michael Hudson was interviewed Thursday on MEGA, a German news radio program, focusing on the economic impact of the war with Russia on major players, particularly Europe. We have a translated transcript below and will embed the YouTube version (in German) which is expected to be posted early next week.* * *
(1.) You made some predictions in our last interview for “Four” magazine which became true.
You talked about crisis for German companies in the production of fertilizer. This just hit the headlines weeks after our interview.
You also said: “What you characterize as “blocking Nord Stream 2” is really a Buy-American policy.” This now also became more than clear after the destroyed Nord Stream pipelines.
Could you comment that?
MH: U.S. foreign policy has long concentrated on control of the international oil trade. This trade is a leading contributor to the U.S. balance of payments, and its control gives U.S. diplomats the ability to impose a chokehold on other countries.
Oil is the key supplier of energy, and the rise in labor productivity and GDP for the leading economies tends to reflect the rise in energy use per worker. Oil and gas are not only for burning for energy, but are also a basic chemical input for fertilizers, and hence for agricultural productivity, as well as for much plastic and other chemical production.
So U.S. strategists recognize that cutting countries off from oil and its derivatives will stifle their industry and agriculture. The ability to impose such sanctions enables the U.S. to make countries dependent on compliance with U.S. policy so as not to be “excommunicated” from the oil trade.
U.S. diplomats have been telling Europe for many years not to rely on Russian oil and gas. The aim is twofold: to deprive Russia of its major trade surplus, and to capture the vast European market for U.S. oil producers. U.S. diplomats convinced German leaders not to approve the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, and finally used the excuse of the NATO war with Russia in Ukraine to act unilaterally to arrange the destruction of both Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines.
(2.) For our audience, our listeners: In your new book “The Destiny of Civilization: Finance Capitalism, Industrial Capitalism, or Socialism”
You state that the world economy is now fracturing between two parts, the United States and Europe is the dollarized part.
And this Western neoliberal unit is driving Eurasia and most of the Global South into a separate group. You just stated this in an interview from November.
MH: The split is not only geographic but above all reflects the conflict between Western neoliberalism and the traditional logic of industrial capitalism. The West has deindustrialized its economies by replacing industrial capitalism with finance capitalism, initially in an attempt to keep its wages down by moving abroad to employ foreign labor, and then to try and establish monopoly privileges and captive markets or arms (and now oil) and high-technology essentials, becoming rentier economies.
A century ago, industrial capitalism was expected to evolve into industrial socialism, with governments providing subsidized basic infrastructure services (such as health care, education, communication, research and development) to minimize their cost of living and doing business. That is how the United States, Germany and other countries built up their industrial power, and it also is how China and other Eurasian countries have done so more recently. …
To be honest, I would like to start with some summing up. Clearly, it was not the easiest year, and not the most ordinary, but what are its main results for you?
What have we achieved, perhaps, what did we fail to achieve, and how do you see our future, where are we going and where should we arrive?
Thank you.
Vladimir Putin: There are no ideal situations. Ideal situations only happen in plans, on paper, and you always want something more. But in general, I think that Russia made it through the year quite confidently. We have no concerns that the current situation will prevent us from implementing our plans for the future, including for 2023.
Let me repeat once again, we believe – I want to stress this – that everything that is happening, and everything connected with the special military operation, is an absolutely forced and necessary measure. We should be grateful to our military, our troops, officers, our soldiers for what they are doing for Russia, defending its interests, sovereignty and, above all, protecting our people. They act with dignity and achieve what the country needs.
As for the economy, as you know, despite the collapses, devastation and catastrophe predicted for us in the economic sphere, nothing like that is happening. Moreover, Russia is performing much better than many G20 countries, and doing so confidently. This applies to the main macroeconomic indicators and the GDP. Yes, there has been a small drop. I said it quite recently: 2.9 percent, according to our and international experts. Now they are giving another figure, even smaller: 2.5.
The unemployment rate is a key indicator worldwide. In Russia, it is below the pre-pandemic period: let me remind you, then it was 4.7 percent, and now it is at 3.8–3.9 percent. That is, the labour market is stable.
Public finances are stable, there are no alarming details here either. This result did not just fall into our laps. It is the result of the work of the Government, regional teams, businesses, and sentiment in society, which is showing unity and a desire to work together to achieve common goals.
Therefore, in general, we feel confident, and I have no doubt that every goal we set will be achieved.
Konstantin Panyushkin: Good afternoon.
Konstantin Panyushkin, Channel One.
In the wake of the State Council, if you will. How would you personally assess the results of the implementation of youth policy this year, considering the dignified way Russian youth have conducted themselves since February 24?
Vladimir Putin: You know, we always talk about this – well, not us, but look at our classical literature: it is always about fathers and children, it is always a question of young people in any period of the country’s development – and, indeed, I think the same is happening all over the world – young people are constantly accused of being superficial, unworthy of something, that everything was better before.
On the contrary, I believe that young people are always better. Remember the hardest trials at all times in our history. Everyone said, “No, that was then, now they could not do it.” But what can they not do? Young people can do everything. There are different types in all age groups. But in general, our young people show, primarily, a striving for progress, they demonstrate a high level of education, training, understanding of the ongoing processes in the world, in society, and an understanding of where to go, what has true value, what you need to rely on.
I am talking about our history, love for the homeland, for our Fatherland. This is especially pronounced during times of trial.
Recall our difficult events in the North Caucasus. People did not think much of our youth. But recall the paratroopers from Pskov – this is an example of what young people can do, how heroically they can behave. And now look at how young people are fighting and how our youth are responding to what is happening in the zone of the special military operation, how they are supporting our fighters.
I went to the Manezh today, and I was close to tears when I saw how young people in their teens and a little older were collecting things, writing letters. There were also many volunteers that were young as well.
Yes, people are different. There are people who got into their cars and silently drove away, yes. But on the whole, I want to repeat that Russia’s young people – and I can say this with confidence – are demonstrating love for their land, a desire to fight for it and move forward individually and as a country.
Andrei Kolesnikov: Good afternoon.
Kommersant newspaper.
Mr President, you did not give your Address to the Federal Assembly this year and, apparently, there will not be one. Like many others, I have written about this, noting that the issue of the address flared up in several formats recently, for instance, at the meeting of the Council for Strategic Development and National Projects. It seems, yesterday it was also mentioned at the expanded meeting of the Defence Ministry Board.
Could you explain why this is the case this year? And what does the future hold for your address?
Vladimir Putin: I think there was no address in 2017, either. I am referring to the calendar year. But there should be.
What is the problem? The problem is these are fast-moving events, the situation is developing very rapidly. Therefore, it was very difficult – probably not very, but rather difficult to pin down results at a specific moment and specific plans for the near future. We will do that early next year, without a doubt.
But the point of the address lies in what I have just said. It has been reflected in my statements one way or another. It was impossible not to talk about it. So, frankly, it was rather difficult for me and the Executive Office to squeeze this into a formal address without a lot of repetition, and that is it. In other words, I have already spoken about key things in one way or another, so there was not much desire to collect it all again and repeat what I had already said.
For something substantial, we need time and additional analysis of what is happening, what we are talking about and planning for the near future.
We will do this. I will not mention exact dates but we will certainly do this in the coming year.
Kseniya Golovanova: Kseniya Golovanova, Interfax.
Mr President, I would like to ask you about the agreement on supplying Patriot missile battery to Ukraine reached during Mr Zelensky’s visit to the United States. Is it possible to speak about full US involvement in the conflict in Ukraine? What about the consequences of this decision? For instance, can Russia bring its systems closer to the borders of NATO countries or deploy them in direct proximity to the US?
Thank you.
Vladimir Putin: You have asked whether it is possible to speak about greater US involvement in the conflict in Ukraine. I think we need to look at the problem more broadly. What do I mean specifically and why?
Because the United States has been doing this for a long time – it has long been involved in the processes taking place in the Soviet and post-Soviet space. Back in Soviet times whole institutes worked in Ukraine, and they fully realised the background of the issue. They have experienced, deep specialists who know this professionally. I will repeat, the ground was laid during Soviet times; people were selected, meanings were defined and so on. I don’t want to go into details at this point – this is not the right format where one can go deep into the history of the issue. That said, it is still clear where all this came from.
The unity of the Russian world is a very subtle issue. Divide and rule – this slogan was used in ancient times and is still being actively used in real politics. This is why our potential adversary, our opponents have always been dreaming about this and have always been engaged in this. They have been trying to divide us and then run the separate parts.
What is new here? The idea of Ukrainian separatism was born by itself long ago, when we were still one country. You know, I have always said that if someone decides that a separate ethnic group has formed and wants to live independently, for God’s sake, it is impossible to ever go against the will of the people.
But if this is so, this principle must be universal and it is impossible to ever go against the will of people that feel like they are in a different reality, that consider themselves a part of the Russian people and the Russian world, that believe they are part of this culture, part of this language and part of this history and these traditions. Nobody can fight them, either.
But a war was unleashed on them in 2014. I mean a war. This is what it was about. What was it when the centres of million-strong cities were struck from the air? What was it when troops with armour were deployed against them? It was a war, combat operations. We endured all this, endured and endured, in the hope of some peace agreement. Now it turns out that we were simply fooled. So, a country like the United States has been involved in this for a long time. A long time.
In this sense, it is possible to say that by leading us to the current events, they achieved the desired goal. For our part, we had also no other choice than the actions we took late last February. Yes, that was the logic shaping the developments, but our primary goal is to protect people that – let me repeat – feel like they are part of our nation, part of our culture.
What did we believe at one time? We believed that okay, the USSR ceased to exist. But, as I said at yesterday’s Defence Ministry Board meeting, we thought our common historical roots, our cultural and spiritual background would be stronger than what pulls us apart, and such forces have always existed. We assumed that what unites us was stronger. But no, it was not so, due to the assistance of outside forces and the fact that people with extreme nationalist views came to power basically after the collapse of the Union.
And this division was growing worse all the time with the help of these forces and despite all our efforts. As I once said – at first we were pulled apart, separated and then set against each other. In this sense, they have achieved results, of course, and in this sense it has been something of a fiasco for us. We were left with nothing else. Maybe we were deliberately brought to this, to this brink. But we had nowhere to retreat, this is the problem.
They were always fully involved; they did their best. I do not remember now, but you can read up on it in history books. One of the deputies of the tsarist State Duma said, if you want to lose Ukraine, add Galicia to it. And this is what happened in the end; he turned out to be a visionary. Why? Because people from that part behave very aggressively and actually suppress the silent majority in the rest of that territory.
But again, we believed that the underlying foundations of our unity would be stronger than the trends that are tearing us apart. But it turned out this was not the case. They began to suppress Russian culture and the Russian language, tried to break our spiritual unity in totally barbaric ways. And they pretended that no one noticed. Why? Because, as I said, their strategy was to divide and rule.
A unification of the Russian people is undesirable. No one wants it. On the other hand, our disunity would make them happy; they would gladly continue to rip us apart. But our unification and consolidation are things no one wants – except us, and we will do it and we will succeed.
As to the military-technical aspects, the point is that, as I said yesterday, the Admiral Gorshkov frigate will enter combat service in early January, equipped with new weapons systems.
It is not that we are planning any provocations, but it is nevertheless a factor in strengthening our strategic forces. These are medium-range systems, but they have such speed characteristics that they can give us certain advantages in this sense.
As for the Patriot, it is a pretty old system. I would say it doesn’t work like our S-300. Nevertheless, those who oppose us assume that these systems are defensive weapons. All right. We will just keep that in mind, and there is always an antidote. So those who are doing this, are doing it in vain: it just prolongs the conflict, and that’s that.
Konstantin Kokoveshnikov: Good afternoon.
Konstantin Kokoveshnikov, Zvezda TV channel.
If I may, I have one more question about the special military operation. As usual, you have said very little about the course of the operation, preferring not to speak about the details. However, do you see any signs of the conflict becoming drawn out?
Thank you.
Vladimir Putin: You know, I have already spoken about this. The situation actually started developing – this was less perceptible here, while the West preferred not to speak or notice anything – way back in 2014, after the coup d’état that was instigated by the United States, when cookies were handed out on Maidan. I have spoken about this many times.
But our goal is not to whip up the military conflict but to end this war. This is what we want, and this is what we will try to do.
As for me speaking little or sparingly about it, this is logical. On the one hand, I may be sparing words, but the Defence Ministry holds daily briefings to report to the public and the country about what is going on, where this is taking place, in what manner and so on.
In short, we will do our best to end this, and the sooner, the better, of course. As for what and how this is taking place, I have noted on numerous occasions that the intensification of the conflict will lead to unjustified losses. Many a little makes a mickle.
Alexei Petrov: Alexei Petrov, Rossiya TV channel.
Mr President, my question essentially follows up on this theme.
Western political quarters have recently been saying, including in NATO, that the Western resources which are being provided to Ukraine as assistance are not unlimited; in fact, they are running out. At the same time, some Western experts believe that Russia’s resources are down to the last missiles, munitions and so on.
We have heard this before, but, nevertheless, what is the situation in our defence industry? Can it replenish the resources we need, on the one hand, and produce enough for continuing the special military operation, on the other hand?
Thank you.
Vladimir Putin: First of all, I do not think that the resources of Western countries and NATO members have been stretched thin. It is another matter that Ukraine is being supplied with weapons of the former Warsaw Pact countries, the majority of which are Soviet-made. This resource is running out indeed; we have destroyed and burned almost all of these weapons. There is only something like a few dozen armoured vehicles and a hundred of other weapon systems left. We have destroyed a lot of them. The stock of these systems is almost exhausted.
But this does not mean that Western countries and NATO do not have other weapons. They do have them. However, it is not easy to convert to new weapon systems, including NATO-standard ones. This requires preparation time, personnel training, stocks of spare parts, maintenance and repair. It is a big and complicated issue. This is my first point.
Second, there is also the question of the Western defence industry capabilities. The US defence sector is large and can be drummed up, but this will not be easy there either, because this involves additional allocations, and the allocation of funds is part of the budget process. It is not a simple matter.
It is said that the Patriot systems may be sent to Ukraine. Let them do it; we will weed out the Patriots too. And they will have to send something to replace them with or create new systems. It is a long and complicated process. It is not all that simple. We take this into account and count everything that is being sent there, how many systems there are in the depots, how many more they can manufacture and how fast, and if they can train the necessary personnel.
Now to our capabilities and resources. We are spending them, of course. I will not provide figures here, for example, how many shells we are using a day. The figures are high. But the difference between us and those who are fighting us is that the Ukrainian defence industry is rapidly moving towards zero if not a negative figure. All of its manufacturing capabilities will be destroyed soon, whereas our framework is being expanded. As I pointed out at the Defence Ministry Board meeting yesterday, we will not do this to the detriment of the other economic sectors. We must provide for the army anyway, one way or another, as the Minister said yesterday.
Unlike Ukraine, we have been developing our industry, including the defence sector over the past decades. We have been developing out military science and technology. There are some elements lacking, like loitering munitions, drones and the like, but we have been working on that. We know which enterprises can produce them, how many and how soon. We have the funds for financing research and technology centres and manufacturing capacities. We have all of that.
Yes, there is a problem with building up production speed and volumes. But we can do it, and we will certainly do it.
Mr President, in this situation, is there a real chance for a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine situation? Is it possible?
Vladimir Putin: Every conflict, every armed conflict ends with some kind of negotiations on the diplomatic track, one way or another, and we have never refused to negotiate. It is the Ukrainian leadership that has forbidden itself to negotiate. This attitude is somewhat unusual, even bizarre, I would say. Nevertheless, sooner or later, any parties that are in a state of conflict sit down and negotiate. The sooner this realisation comes to those who oppose us, the better. We have never given up on that.
Valery Sanfirov: Valery Sanfirov, Vesti FM.
Mr President, you have been meeting frequently with the military of late.
Vladimir Putin: Does this surprise you?
Valery Sanfirov: No.
Vladimir Putin: Every day, so that you understand, every day.
Valery Sanfirov: A question about heroes.
You have passed Kutuzovsky Prospekt as you were traveling to this State Council meeting; the streets in that area are named after General Dorokhov, Rayevsky, Barclay de Tolly, and Vasilisa Kozhina. Even the State Council meeting took place in a hall with some 11,000 plaques with the names of St George decorated heroes, if I am not mistaken.
Is the special military operation producing national heroes and commanders? Are any new names appearing?
Vladimir Putin: Yes, of course. Unfortunately, any armed conflict is associated with losses, with tragedies, injuries and so on. And as a rule, you know, those who die while defending the interests of their Fatherland, their Motherland, their people, those who receive injuries – they are the strongest. They are at the forefront. And of course, they are heroes. I have said this many times. This is my personal deep conviction.
Just think about it: you and I are standing here in this hall at the Kremlin Palace; we are warm, with the artificial sun shining above us; the lights are on, the interior is beautiful – and the soldiers are out there in the snow. Do you see?
We talk about the insoles in their boots and so on, about their weapons – but they can come under fire at any moment. Of course, they are all heroes. They are putting in a tremendous effort, risking their health and lives. Of course, they are heroes. Some of them commit special acts, acts that are referred to as heroism, personal heroism. Not just hard work, but personal heroism.
We think about this, of course, and we will definitely find a way to present them as role models for our entire society, as an example for the younger generation to follow. These people are strengthening the inner spirit of the nation. This is very important. We certainly have them. There are a lot of them. You probably know some of them; others we do not know yet, we do not have their names yet, but we will list them for sure.
Maria Glebova: Maria Glebova, RIA Novosti.
If I may, I would like to get back to the economy.
You said earlier that the economy has not collapsed. But now we hear that the main blow will come next year. Could you please tell us whether it will be possible to keep the Russian economy afloat?
Also, at the end of each year, you meet with Russian business leaders. But not this year. Why is that? Do you see their role in the growth of private investment now?
I would also like to bring up social matters. Will all social commitments that were made continue to be met?
Thank you.
Vladimir Putin: As for the economy, I have already touched upon this topic, but have something to add.
First, the predicted economic collapse did not happen. True, we have posted a decline, and I will repeat the figures. There have been promises – or predictions or hopes maybe – that Russia’s economy will contract. Some said its GDP would drop by 20 percent or more, by 20–25 percent. True, there is a decline in GDP, but not 20–25 percent; it is in fact 2.5 percent. That is the first thing.
Second. Inflation, as I said, will be a little more than 12 percent this year – it is one of the most important indicators, too. This, I think, is much better than in many other countries, including the G20 countries. Inflation is not good of course, but it being smaller than in other countries is good.
Next year – we have mentioned this, too – we will strive for the 4–5 percent target, based on the economy’s performance in the first quarter – at least, we hope so. And this is a very good trend, unlike in some other G20 countries, where inflation is on the rise.
Unemployment is at a historic low of 3.8 percent. We are running a budget deficit, this is true, but it is only 2 percent this year, next year too, then it is projected at one percent, and less than one percent in 2025: we are expecting about 0.8 percent. I would like to point out that other countries – both large developing economies and the so-called developed market economies – are running a much greater deficit. In the United States, I think, it is 5.7 percent, and in China, it is over 7 percent. All major economies are running deficits above 5 percent. We are not.
This is a good foundation for moving confidently into 2023.
Our priority for 2023 will be the development of infrastructure. I do not think I need to list all the projects, we have a lot: the Eastern Operating Domain project, the North-South corridor, and other infrastructure projects across the country (just recently Marat Khusnullin reported on road construction) and so on. Airports, ports, a lot of other projects.
Next, we also need to deal with financial issues. What do I mean? The country’s financial system is stable, banks are reliable and operate without disruptions, which is thanks to the Government and bank employees who work very hard and know their jobs very well. They are highly qualified people who manage many things, if not everything. We must maintain macroeconomic stability. We will not allow any uncontrollable spending but, as I said, will move towards achieving the main macroeconomic indicators that can support the economic stability in general.
I spoke about infrastructure. The next important aspect is maintaining the stability of the financial system, the banking system and the budget. It is important to do a very important thing, which is to substitute the investment that participants in the economic activity relied on before, including some Western institutions, foundations and so on, with sources inside the country. They must be substituted with domestic funding. Of course, we can do it by engaging various instruments. I do not want to go into detail. If you are asking a question about the economy, your readers most likely know what they are. They exist and must be developed. It is not a simple matter but it is possible.
Of course, we must resolve the main issue, which is increasing real wages. It is absolutely obvious. Considering the inflation and the budget revenues, we are able to make a step in this direction. We have an entire set of economic measures we must take. I have no doubt that all of them are achievable. Results of the next year will show how we can fulfil these plans and get closer to solving these tasks.
Maria Glebova: What about large businesses?
Vladimir Putin: Large businesses.
You see, I always enjoy meeting with my colleagues although now COVID is on the rise again, along with swine flu. It is the only problem. I mean I could meet with them like I am meeting with you, but they have to gather in one place. They may pose certain risks to each other in terms of the epidemiological situation. It is the only problem. At any rate, we maintain constant contact and will continue to develop this dialogue.
They are going through difficult times. You see, there are different people. We know that well, the country knows it. First of all, they were all subjected to sanctions. Western, pro-Western or not, they were subjected to the sanctions indiscriminately. What for? To force businesses to confront the government. But people living in this country must serve the country’s interests. And the country is interested in them working effectively and paying taxes. They do not have to have a boat seized abroad or a castle on the Mediterranean Sea or in London.
You see, the point is, if a person lives here and associates their life, the life of their children and family with this country, it is one thing. But if a person does not associate their life with this country and simply takes money from here to build a life abroad, it means they do not value the country where they live and earn money but instead value their good relationships in the place where their property and bank accounts are. This kind of people pose a danger to us.
But we are non-judgmental, as long as they work effectively. We maintain and we will continue to maintain our contacts.
I want to note that maybe not 100 percent, not everyone, but most representatives of business, including large businesses, are patriots of our country, patriots of Russia. Every person has their own individual circumstances, but all of them are striving not to just live and work in Russia, but to work in the interests of our country, maintain their staff, enterprises, develop the economy, etc.
Nakhid Babayev: Good afternoon, Mr President.
My name in Nakhid Babayev, NTV.
I would like to talk more about the economy. Is Russia suffering losses after the price cap on Russian oil was adopted? Has the oil sector asked the state for help, concessions?
Hence the next question. Much is being said about the response measures, and an executive order is being developed. Will the measures outlined by it be able to protect our interests?
Vladimir Putin: You know, I think I will sign the executive order next Monday or Tuesday. These are preventive measures, because there is no obvious damage to Russia, the Russian economy or the Russian fuel and energy sector. We are selling oil at approximately the same prices as this cap.
Yes, the goal of our geopolitical opponents and adversaries is to reduce the income to the Russian budget, but we are not losing anything because of this cap. The Russian fuel and energy sector, the budget and the economy are not incurring losses, because we already sell oil at this price.
But what is important is that they are trying to bring new tools, not characteristic of the market economy, to the global economy. The customer, the buyer is trying to introduce new, non-market regulation to be used in theory and practice in the entire world.
Imagine this: you want to go to a dealer to buy a car, say, a Mercedes or a Chevrolet. You go there and say, “I will buy it for five rubles, no more.” Okay. You buy one, two, three cars, and then the Mercedes factory will close, because the production of Mercedes or Chevrolet cars will not be profitable anymore. It is the same in the energy sector, completely the same thing.
This sector already lacks investment. There are problems related to the fact that money is not invested in new projects such as pipelines, production and development due to environmental concerns and the transition to renewable energy sources. Banks do not loan money, and insurance companies refuse to issue policies. Large global companies have stopped investing in the volume the global energy sector needs.
And now they are trying to administratively set a price cap. This is the road toward destroying the global energy sector. The moment might come when the underinvested sector stops providing the necessary volume of products and the prices will soar and hurt those who are trying to introduce these instruments.
Therefore, energy producers, oil producers in this case, take it personally, referring to themselves, not Russia, but themselves because everyone believes that this is the first attempt to dictate administrative rules of price regulation to producers, and more will follow.
Alexei Lazurenko: Alexei Lazurenko, Izvestia.
I would like to follow up on the same subject.
Similar decisions to cap gas prices were adopted several days ago. What will we do in this context? How big of a threat is this for us, and what will be the future of the Nord Stream pipelines?
Vladimir Putin: This initiative follows the same pattern, as far as I can tell. Once again, we are witnessing an attempt to use administrative leverage to regulate prices. Nothing good can come out of this for gas or oil markets.
Overall, sometimes our colleagues and partners really surprise me by how unprofessional they are. There was a time when it was the European Commission which forced us to switch to market pricing and to setting the price of natural gas on the commodity exchange. We, in turn, and I personally, tried to persuade Brussels not to do it, saying that this is not how the gas market works and would have grave consequences, resulting in surging prices. This is exactly what is happening right now. Now they do not know how to get out of this situation and are trying to regulate the price of gas too.
However, there is a slight difference compared to the way they try regulating oil prices. This time, the European Commission is focusing on regulating commodity exchanges. They are pegging gas prices to LNG, saying that gas prices must correlate with LNG pricing, etc. Still, this is an attempt to use administrative methods for regulating prices.
You know, they do not listen to us, they do not want to deal with us, they do not like us and want to counter us. Fine, but what about listening to themselves? I am referring to those trying to regulate gas prices in Europe. They always take their cues from the Americans, bowing and humiliating themselves every time they are ordered to do something. This time, there were no orders, but they could have listened to what the US experts are saying. Take Friedman, a prominent economist and Nobel Prize winner. He said that if you want to create a shortage of tomatoes, just cap the price of tomatoes. Instantly you’ll have a tomato shortage. They are doing the same with oil and gas – exactly the same. For some reason, no one is listening.
We have been keeping a close eye on these developments, watching them. If the system they propose tilts towards administrative regulation and runs counter to Gazprom’s contracts with its counterparts, or if there is any interference in these contracts, we reserve the right to consider whether we have an obligation to perform these contracts while the other party infringes on them.
As for the Nord Streams…. What can I say? This was a terrorist attack, which is obvious, and everyone has recognised this. Even more surprising is that it is an act of international, or should I say state terrorism. Why? Because individuals cannot carry out terror attacks of this kind on their own. States were clearly involved in perpetrating them.
As they say in such cases: look for who will benefit. Who will benefit from Russian gas being supplied to Europe only through Ukraine, who will benefit from Ukraine receiving the money? The aggressor is Russia, but they receive money from us for transit, and we are paying them, though they call us aggressors, and though they are aggressors in relation to Donbass, too. We are countering aggression, not the other way around. They take money and that is alright. Money is money.
Who benefits from Russian gas being supplied to Europe only through Ukraine? That is who blew it up. Nobody is investigating. We had an opportunity just once to inspect the sites of explosions. All this was in the media, there is nothing to repeat, as I am sure you already know this. But there is no real investigation, no one is investigating. It is astonishing but true.
As for oil and gas, do you know what occurred to me right now during our conversation? I have already talked about this once, but I think it will be difficult to disagree with what I am about to say.
Look, they are trying to put a price cap on energy resources, on oil and gas. Who produces them? Russia, Arab countries, Latin America, Asia, Indonesia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE produce oil, too. The United States produces both oil and gas, but they consume everything: they have little left for the external market. That is, it is produced in those countries, but consumed in Europe and in the United States.
I believe that what they are trying to do now is a remnant of colonialism. They are used to robbing other countries. Indeed, to a large extent, the rise of European countries’ economies is based on slave trade and robbery of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. To a large extent, the prosperity of the United States grew out of the slave trade and the use of slave labour, and then, of course, as a result of the First and Second World Wars, which is obvious. But they are used to robbing others. And an attempt at non-market regulation in the sphere of the economy is the same colonial robbery, or, in any case, an attempt at colonial robbery.
But the world has changed and they are unlikely to be able to do it today.
Alexander Yunashev: Mr President, good afternoon.
Alexander Yunashev, Life.
I would like to ask you how the events of recent months have changed your life and daily routine? Do you find the time to exercise?
Next week is New Year, so I would like to wish you happy holidays and ask how you will spend them?
Thank you.
Vladimir Putin: Thank you.
There is nothing out of the ordinary here. I will celebrate this New Year with my family, with people who are dear to me, and I will watch the President’s speech, the address.
As for sports, I do continue to exercise. I believe that this is just a way to stay in shape, and I must stay fit for work. It is like a pill that makes you feel good and work well. I wish everyone had this attitude to sports: it is a good thing. They say that it also helps stay fit mentally: a sound mind in a sound body.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken probably thought that in his self-appointed role as the world’s policeman, it was his prerogative to check out what is going on among Germany, China and Russia that he wasn’t privy to. However, Blinken’s call to Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Friday (December 23) turned out to be a fiasco.
Most certainly, his intention was to gather details on two high-level exchanges that Chinese President Xi Jinping had on successive days last week – with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and the chairman of the United Russia Party and former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev respectively.
Blinken likely made an intelligent guess that Steinmeier’s phone call to Xi on Tuesday and Medvedev’s surprise visit to Beijing and his meeting with Xi on Wednesday might not have been coincidental.
Medvedev’s mission would have been to transmit some highly sensitive message from Russian President Vladimir Putin to Xi. Recent reports had indicated that Moscow and Beijing were working on a meeting between Putin and Xi later this month.
Steinmeier is an experienced diplomat who held the post of foreign minister from 2005 to 2009 and again from 2013 to 2017, as well as of vice-chancellor of Germany from 2007 to 2009 – all during the period Angela Merkel was the chancellor (2005- 2021). Merkel left a legacy of a surge in Germany’s relations with both Russia and China.
Steinmeier is a senior politician belonging to the Social Democratic Party, same as the present chancellor Olaf Scholz. It is certain that Steinmeier’s call with Xi was in consultation with Scholz. This is one thing.
Most important, Steinmeier had played a seminal role in negotiating the two Minsk Agreements (2014 and 2015), which provided for a package of measures to stop the fighting in the Donbas in the downstream of the US-sponsored coup in Kiev.
When the Minsk agreements began unraveling by 2016, Steinmeier stepped in with an ingenious idea that later came to be known as the Steinmeier Formula spelling out the sequencing of events spelled out in the agreements.
Specifically, the Steinmeier formula called for elections to be held in the separatist-held territories of the Donbas under Ukrainian legislation and the supervision of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. It proposed that if the OSCE judged the balloting to be free and fair, then a special self-governing status for the territories would be initiated.
Of course, all that is history now. Merkel “confessed” recently in an interview with Zeit newspaper that in reality, the Minsk agreement was a Western attempt to buy “invaluable time” for Kiev to rearm itself.
Given this complex backdrop, Blinken would have sensed something was amiss when Steinmeier had a call with Xi Jinping out of the blue, and Medvedev made a sudden appearance in Beijing the next day and was received by the Chinese president. Notably, Beijing’s readouts were rather upbeat on China’s relationship with Germany and Russia.
Xi put forward a three-point proposal to Steinmeier on the development of China-Germany relations and stated that “China and Germany have always been partners of dialogue, development, and cooperation as well as partners for addressing global challenges.”
Similarly, in the meeting with Medvedev, he underscored that “China is ready to work with Russia to constantly push forward China-Russia relations in the new era and make global governance more just and equitable.”
Both readouts mentioned Ukraine as a topic of discussion, with Xi stressing that “China stays committed to promoting peace talks” (to Steinmeier) and “actively promoted peace talks” (to Medvedev).
But Blinken went about his mission clumsily by bringing to the fore the contentious US-China issues, especially “the current Covid-19 situation” in China and “the importance of transparency for the international community.”
It comes as no surprise that Wang sternly lectured Blinken not to “engage in dialogue and containment at the same time,” or to “talk cooperation, but stab China simultaneously.”
Wang said, “This is not reasonable competition, but irrational suppression. It is not meant to properly manage disputes, but to intensify conflicts. In fact, it is still the old practice of unilateral bullying. This did not work for China in the past, nor will it work in the future.”
Specifically, on Ukraine, Wang said, “China has always stood on the side of peace, of the purposes of the UN Charter, and of the international society to promote peace and talks. China will continue to play a constructive role in resolving the crisis in China’s own way.” Judging from the US State Department readout, Blinken failed to engage Wang in a meaningful conversation on Ukraine.
Indeed, Germany’s recent overtures to Beijing in quick succession – Chancellor Scholz’s high-profile visit to China last month with a delegation of top German CEOs and Steinmeier’s phone call last week – have not gone down well in Washington.
US President Joe Biden’s administration expects Germany to coordinate with Washington first instead of taking its own initiatives toward China. (Interestingly, Xi Jinping underscored the importance of Germany preserving its strategic autonomy.)
The current pro-American foreign minister of Germany, Annalena Baerbock, distanced herself from Chancellor Scholz’s China visit. Evidently, Steinmeier’s phone call to Xi confirms that Scholz is moving according to a plan to pursue a path of constructive engagement with China, as Merkel did, no matter the state of play in the United States’ tense relationship with China.
That said, discussing peacemaking in Ukraine with China is a daring move on the part of the German leadership at the present juncture when the Biden administration is deeply engaged in a proxy war with Russia and has every intention to support Ukraine “for as long as it takes.”
But there is another side to it. Germany has been internalizing its anger and humiliation during the past several months. Germany cannot but feel that it had been played in the countdown to the Ukraine conflict – something particularly galling for a country that is genuinely Atlanticist in its foreign-policy orientation.
German ministers have expressed displeasure publicly that American oil companies are brazenly exploiting the ensuing energy crisis to make windfall profits by selling gas at three to four times the domestic price in the US.
Germany also fears that the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act, building on foundational climate and clean-energy investments, may lead to the migration of German industry to the US.
The unkindest cut of all has been the destruction of the Nord Stream gas pipelines. Germany must have a fairly good idea as to the forces that were behind that terrorist act, but it cannot even call them out and must suppress its sense of humiliation and indignation.
The destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines makes a revival of the German-Russian relationship an extremely tortuous affair. For any nation with a proud history, it is a bit too much to accept being pushed around like a pawn.
Scholz and Steinmeier are seasoned politicians and would know when to dig in and hunker down. In any case, China is a crucially important partner for Germany’s economic recovery. Germany can ill afford to let the US destroy its partnership with China and reduce it to a vassal state.
When it comes to the Ukraine war, Germany has become a frontline state, but it is Washington that determines Western tactics and strategy. Germany estimates that China is uniquely placed to be a peacemaker in Ukraine. The signs are that Beijing is warming up to that idea, too.
I have been following the excellent war historian Michael Vlahos for a good portion of the ongoing Ukraine War. I have benefited from his perspectives on history and his well-considered geopolitical insights. Dr. Vlahos’ formal credentials and subject matter expertise are unimpeachable – and unquestionably shade the autodidactic musings of an obscure voice speaking from a rural backwater at the southern rim of the Great Basin.
But with that deservedly flattering preface, I shall now presume to critique and rebut his latest hypothesis in relation to what he seems to believe would be a mutually acceptable resolution to that war on the part of the United States (ostensibly “NATO”) and the Russian Federation.
I will be responding to the latest brief discussion in a podcast series featuring John Batchelor and Dr. Vlahos.
The discussion begins with Mr. Batchelor articulating a series of hypotheticals apparently founded on an assumption that Vladimir Putin is operating from a tenuous position of power and full control over both his generals and the fundamental strategic aims driving the prosecution of this war.
In my studied opinion, there is emphatically zero basis for the assertion that Vladimir Putin is not securely in control of both the Russian military and Russian foreign policy. Nor is there any credible evidence that powerful elements within the Russian military oppose Putin and have even remotely contemplated the idea of deposing him. Indeed, to the extent these notions have any traction in the west, I attribute it entirely to the #EmpireAtAllCosts cult, the arms industry-funded think tank propagandists, and the unbridled intrigues of quasi-supranational western intelligence agencies.
Nevertheless, parting from the premise described above, Batchelor and Vlahos proceed to hypothesize a “peaceful solution” to the war in Ukraine founded in a Russia/NATO partition of Ukraine, with an undefined NATO-controlled western portion juxtaposed against what they indeterminately denominate “Novorossiya” in the east.
Frankly I was shocked by the proposition. In my judgment, it is not only geopolitically incoherent, but inexplicably naïve.
To their credit, both Mr. Batchelor and Dr. Vlahos appear to acknowledge that the only meaningful parties to this war (and its eventual cessation) are those of the waning American Empire (“NATO”) and a Russian Federation that long-resisted and has now decisively rejected assimilation into the hegemon-dictated “rules-based international order”; a Russia that is convinced the brief epoch of American global hegemony has ended, and that a return to a balance-of-powers multipolar world is both inexorable and imminent.
But I am thoroughly persuaded that the “solution” Batchelor and Vlahos propose would be utterly unacceptable to both parties – and would represent not only an unearned victory for NATO, but an unmitigated defeat for both Russian geostrategic interests and Vladimir Putin’s domestic political support.
Many geopolitical analysts have commented to a limited degree on Putin’s bold address to the world delivered even as Russian forces had commenced their “Special Military Operation” in Ukraine on February 24, 2022, but few, if any, have focused their attention on the equally portentous address Putin delivered three days earlier.
In his February 21, 2022 speech, Putin meticulously recounted the relevant history of the region dating back multiple centuries, and focused specifically on the events that followed in the wake of the dissolution of the Soviet Union. (see End Note below)
In addition to Putin’s history lesson, he makes particular reference to a detailed proposal Russia delivered to the United States and its NATO allies in mid-December 2021 – a proposal that effectively amounted to a “final warning”; a last-ditch effort to avoid war in Ukraine.
Consider his words carefully, and particularly in light of how Russia has unswervingly adhered to the three primary war objectives Putin articulated in his February 24th speech.
Last December, we handed over to our Western partners a draft treaty between the Russian Federation and the United States of America on security guarantees, as well as a draft agreement on measures to ensure the security of the Russian Federation and NATO member states.
The United States and NATO responded with general statements. There were kernels of rationality in them as well, but they concerned matters of secondary importance and it all looked like an attempt to drag the issue out and to lead the discussion astray.
We responded to this accordingly and pointed out that we were ready to follow the path of negotiations, provided, however, that all issues are considered as a package that includes Russia’s core proposals which contain three key points. First, to prevent further NATO expansion. Second, to have the Alliance refrain from deploying assault weapon systems on Russian borders.And finally, rolling back the bloc’s military capability and infrastructure in Europe to where they were in 1997, when the NATO-Russia Founding Act was signed.
I submit we can confidently assume Putin was as deadly serious on February 21, 2022 as he was on February 24, 2022; that he was not bluffing; that he was resolved to “raise the stakes” commensurate to whatever was required to achieve the objectives he had so carefully articulated.
I submit that his domestic popularity AND the support of his generals correlates closely to the perception that he will not waver from those objectives, and that it has only been the misplaced sense that he might be failing, or at least stumbling, or that he might even pull back from his stated objectives that has resulted in meaningful criticism arising from his domestic supporters, be it in government, the military, or the general public.
I further submit that, in my estimation, it is precisely the burgeoning faith that Putin will resolutely pursue and achieve his stated objectives that has resulted in the unprecedented willingness of China, Iran, India, and other geostrategically important Eurasian and Global South nations to not only openly support Russia in this conflict, but to also, in many instances, openly defy imperial decrees forbidding military and commercial relations with Russia.
Indeed, I submit that a large proportion of the support Russia continues to command in Europe is directly correlated to a pervasive perception that the Russians “really meant it” when they solemnly, formally, and explicitly informed the United States and NATO that peace would henceforth be contingent on them “… rolling back the bloc’s military capability and infrastructure in Europe to where they were in 1997, when the NATO-Russia Founding Act was signed.”
Now, of course, many will automatically retort that it is one thing to demand such a thing, and another altogether to be able to “make it happen”. But I would argue (as I have since January 2022) that the folly of arrogantly dismissing Russia’s legitimate security demands, and the cynical act of using Ukraine as a proxy army to harm Russia – and ultimately attempt to effect its dismemberment – would, in the end, result only in the end of American hegemony, the end of NATO, and the rebirth of a multipolar world.
It has been my observation that many “veterans” of the empire’s peak period (1991 – 2003) cannot grasp the cold hard reality that we are well into the story arc of an irreversible historical hinge-point.
The lucre-drunken bankers are now gnawing at the carcass of the goose that laid the golden eggs: the hegemonic global dollar system which permitted the US to conjure ex nihilo unlimited amounts of “money” which they then used to purchase and consume the products of the world, and thereby export the inflationary monetary consequences across the globe.
The imperial legions – both on the ground and in the air – never really were the Nephilim warriors of popular legend, and now the severely depleted force has its remaining strength diluted in hundreds of foreign bases dotting the planet.
The imperial navy is an anachronistic relic – a surface fleet not meaningfully dissimilar to the one that sailed into Tokyo Bay in 1945 … except in terms of its radically reduced numbers.
Speaking in the context of the vulnerability of surface ships to 21st century missile capabilities, one US Navy admiral is reported to have observed, “We have two kinds of ships in the navy: submarines and targets.” I discuss the issue at length in this essay from July 2022: Dinosaurs of the Deep Blue Sea.
And yet a great many still cling to the fond delusion of American military supremacy, and are unshakably convinced that, were the US to directly employ its conventional forces against Russia, it would overwhelm their defenses in a matter of days.
And yet three decades of flying effectively unopposed strike missions against vastly inferior adversaries have imbued most of the western world with the belief that American air power is impregnable – a myth that ought to have already been dispelled by the unprecedented demonstration of Russian air defense capabilities in Ukraine.
Even so, it is clear the Russians are fully cognizant of both American weaknesses and the capability of Russian defenses to defeat perceived American strengths.
It is for this reason I am convinced Putin’s Russia would never consider for a moment a proposal to bring this war to an end on the basis of a partition of Ukraine into NATO-controlled and Russian-controlled sections. Quite to the contrary, it is clear to me and a great many observers that Russia is now poised to win this war in a decisive fashion, and to then dictate to Ukraine and its western handlers the terms of surrender, the disposition of territories, and the conditions upon which peace in the region can be maintained going forward.
There is also very good reason to conclude Russia “really meant it” when they demanded that NATO pull back to its pre-1997 borders in Europe, and that they will not accede to any agreement with NATO that does not meet that precondition. That said, Russia need not reconquer the Warsaw Pact nations in order to achieve this objective. They need only to refuse to do business with them and the rest of Europe until they themselves shake off their vassal chains, exert their sovereignty, and construct a pan-European security structure independent of American hegemony.
End Note:
In relation to Putin’s description of the events of the last three decades, I would strongly recommend this essential recent interview of former US ambassador to Russia Jack Matlock, wherein he recounts these matters from his uniquely authoritative vantage point, and thereby confirms most of Putin’s perspectives on those same events.
I would however note that, although Matlock’s interpretations of events in which he participated are essential pieces of the larger puzzle, I disagree with several of his interpretations of recent and current events, and consider most of his remedial proposals to be effectively impossible.
Visit Schryver’s Substack site for more insightful analysis.
By Volodymyr Ishchenko, New Left Review, November/December 2022
Recently there has been much talk about the ‘decolonization’ of Ukraine. This is often understood as ridding the Ukrainian public sphere and the education system of Russian culture and language. The more radical decolonizers, also to be found in the West, would like to see the Russian Federation disintegrate into multiple smaller states—to finish the process of the collapse of imperial Russia that began in 1917 and was not completed in 1991, with the dissolution of the ussr. In the university context, it may also mean ‘decolonizing’ the thinking of the social sciences and humanities, whose approach to the whole post-Soviet region is seen as having been penetrated and distorted by a long-term form of Russian cultural imperialism.
When the biggest wave of decolonization in modern history took place after the Second World War, the focus was different. At that time, decolonization meant not just the overthrow of the European empires but also, crucially, building new developmentalist states in the ex-colonial countries, with a robust public sector and nationalized industries to replace the imbalances of the colonial economy through import-substitution programmes. The contradictions and failures of such strategies were explored in broadly Marxian terms in theories of under-development, debt-dependency and world-system analysis. Today, ‘decolonization’ is proposed for Ukraine and Russia in a context in which neoliberalism has taken the place of state-developmentalist policies and post-structuralist ‘postcolonial studies’ have displaced theories of neo-imperialist dependency. National liberation is no longer understood as intrinsically linked to social revolution, challenging the basis of capitalism and imperialism. Instead, it happens in the context of the ‘deficient revolutions’ of the Maidan type, which neither achieve the consolidation of liberal democracy nor eradicate corruption. If they succeed in overthrowing authoritarian regimes and ‘empowering’ the ngo representatives of civil society, they are also liable to weaken the public sector and increase crime rates, social inequality and ethnic tensions.footnote1
It is not surprising, therefore, that talk of Ukraine’s ‘decolonization’ is so much about symbols and identity, and so little about social transformation. If what is at stake is the defence of the Ukrainian state, what kind of state is it? So far, Ukraine’s ‘decolonization’ has not led to more robust state-interventionist economic policies but almost precisely the opposite. Paradoxically, despite the objective imperatives of the war, Ukraine is proceeding with privatizations, lowering taxes, scrapping protective labour legislation and favouring ‘transparent’ international corporations over ‘corrupt’ domestic firms.footnote2 The plans for post-war reconstruction did not read like a programme for building a stronger sovereign state but like a pitch to foreign investors for a start-up; or at least, that was the impression given by Ukrainian ministers at the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Lugano last summer. Some naively hope that ‘war anarchism’ founded on the cherished horizontal volunteerism that has flourished since the Russian invasion, will substitute for the time-proven ‘war socialism’.footnote3 More sober assessments warn of the conditions being created for state fragmentation and a political economy of violence. It remains to be seen what the Ukrainian government will do with the recently nationalized industrial assets of selected oligarchs—return them to their former owners, pay compensation or re-privatize them to transnational capital—but it is highly unlikely that they will form the backbone of a stronger post-war public sector. In all probability they will remain rather limited measures responding to the crises in specific industries.footnote4
Ukrainian ‘decolonization’ is thus reduced to abolishing anything related to Russian influence in culture, education and the public sphere. Against this, it amplifies the voices articulating Ukrainian distinctiveness. This is combined with attacks upon—or, as in Zelensky’s banning of eleven political parties in March 2022, the repression of—the voices of those who oppose this process or are simply labelled, usually misleadingly, as ‘pro-Russian’. In this way, Ukraine’s ‘decolonization’ becomes a version of (national-)identity politics—that is, a politics centered around the affirmation of belonging to a particular essentialized group, with a projected shared experience. Here—thanks to the increased global interest in Ukraine, but also to the physical relocation of Ukrainians to Western countries where they can enter more actively into international debates—Ukrainian scholars, intellectuals and artists face a dilemma. Either we allow ourselves to become incorporated as just another ‘voice’ in a very specific field of institutionalized identity politics in the West, where Ukrainians would be just the latest addition to a long queue of a myriad of other minority voices. Or instead, starting from the tragedy of Ukraine, we set out to articulate the questions of global relevance, search for their solutions, and contribute to universal human knowledge. Paradoxically, this requires a much deeper and more genuine engagement with Ukraine than happens now.
Recognition for whom?
The critics of contemporary identity politics point to a fundamental contradiction: ‘Why do we look for recognition from the very institutions we reject as oppressive?’footnote5 The oppressive situations faced by women, black people and others involve complex social relations, institutions and ideologies, reproduced within the warp and weft of capitalist relations. The black, gay and women’s liberation movements that arose in the 1960s and 70s fought to challenge the oppressive social order as a whole. While those oppressive relations persist, the question of universal emancipation has long since disappeared; instead, contemporary identity politics serve to amplify the particular voices that are deemed to require representation solely on the basis of their particularity. Instead of social redistribution, this politics calls primarily for recognition within the institutions which are not themselves put into question.footnote6 Moreover, because the groups that identity politics tends to essentialize are always internally diverse, it inevitably amplifies the more privileged voices who are legitimated to speak on behalf of the oppressed group that they may not really represent. In this way, it tends to reproduce and even legitimate fundamental social inequalities.
Needless to say, it is not Russian recognition that Ukrainian identity politics is seeking. The idea of talking to Russians, even unambiguously anti-Putin and anti-war Russians, is constantly under attack. As one Ukrainian politician put it, ‘good Russians do not exist’.footnote7 Instead, Ukrainian identity politics primarily targets the West, which is held to be culpable for allowing the Russian invasion, trading with Russia, ‘appeasing’ Putin’s regime, providing insufficient support for Ukraine and reproducing ‘Russian imperialist’ narratives about Eastern Europe.footnote8 Yet if the West is to be blamed for Ukraine’s suffering, it could relatively easily redeem itself by providing unconditional support for ‘the Ukrainian’ and unconditional rejection of ‘the Russian’. For this politics, the problem is Russian imperialism, not imperialism in general. Ukraine’s dependency on the West tends not to be problematized at all.
Ukrainians, then, should be accepted as an organic and indispensable part of the civilized Western world. Indeed, Ukrainians turn out to be not just the same as Westerners, but even better than them. Defending the frontier of Western civilization, dying and suffering for Western values, Ukrainians are more Western than those who live in the West.footnote9 However, if Ukrainians are valued primarily for being on the front line of the war with Russia, what positive contribution might the country make, beyond being more consistently anti-Russian? Is it only about recognition within the same unchallenged Western structures, trying to be more of the same? Is there anything else, besides occasionally beating Russia on the battlefield? There are hints to be gleaned from both directions: the West looking at Ukraine and Ukrainians looking at the West. Notably, they talk about different things. The Western gaze on Ukrainian politics usually takes a dichotomizing form. The bad aspects, when they are not perceived as a direct result of Russia’s malicious influence, mostly derive from the local elites and ‘corruption’. The good sides come from Ukraine’s civil society, which (surprise!) is usually strongly supportive of ‘the West’ while often being generously supported by Western donors and, of course, contributing to Western self-esteem.
Some even claim that the Russian invasion has had a positive democratizing effect on Ukraine.footnote10 Before, the talk was usually precisely the opposite: the repressive tendencies in Ukrainian politics were recognized, but the Russian threat was to blame. What could one expect from a country that suffered from external aggression? If only the story of wartime democratization were true. There is some survey evidence that more Ukrainians support democratic values in the polls; there is no less extensive evidence that Ukrainians still prefer a strong leader rather than a democratic system and do not tolerate wartime dissent.footnote11 Ukrainians responded to the invasion with a burst of mutual help and horizontal cooperation, but is that untypical for a society under an existential threat? Whether and how Ukrainian volunteerism will be institutionalized after the war is a big question; the previous wave of volunteerism at the start of the Donbass war in 2014 turned out to be driven by informal personalist initiatives and did little to sustain an organized civil society.footnote12 Meanwhile, Ukrainian politics carries on in the background, shutting down opposition parties, monopolizing television broadcasts, vigilantism that typically goes unpunished, expanding databases of ‘traitors’—some funded by us donors—and attacks on those dissenting from the patriotic consensus. Are we really now in a position to give lessons on democracy and civic activism? Some Ukrainian oligarchs have been weakened, as rockets, drones and artillery rain down on their property, their tv stations broadcast government content and their loyal mps vote in unison with the pro-presidential party. But even if they don’t regain their power after the war, it seems much less likely that their place will be taken by the self-organized Ukrainian people than by transnational capital, Zelensky’s personalized regime and the thin gratin of ngo civil society.
Or should the world learn from our economy? This is actually a view arising from the Ukrainian gaze on the West. The middle-class Ukrainian refugees who have been starting new lives in the eu this year circulate scathing stories on social media about old-fashioned European bureaucracy and ‘poor’ service. But what stands behind the ‘better’ Ukrainian service sphere are the lowest wages in Europe and ever-poorer protection of labour rights. Ukraine’s digitalization has advanced, but this is a typical laggard’s advantage: Ukraine was forced to digitalize because the state institutions have been so inefficient—another reason why so much volunteerism and international aid is needed. However, emergency responses are hardly a long-term solution.
That’s about it. These are not Ukraine’s unique advantages; this is not why the Western elite currently cares so much about Ukraine. There has indeed been something of a legitimacy deficit there, increasing over the past decade; its symptoms include declining rates of support for the traditional parties, the rise of populist movements and new direct-action protests—Black Lives Matter, MeToo—by the oppressed. In a sense, all are responses to the crisis of representation. All are saying: ‘You—politicians, global elites, whites, men—do not represent us. You cannot speak for us.’ Historically, the major Western states have been quite successful in neutralizing these criticisms through the formalistic inclusion of selected members of the marginalized groups, a ‘solution’ which excluded any larger challenges to the existing order. From the universal viewpoint of the oppressed, this tokenistic solution was always deficient; it alleviated the representation crisis without solving it. Today, the Ukrainian resistance is exploited in a broadly similar way, to give greater credibility to Western superiority. Ukrainians are presented as fighting and dying for what too many Westerners do not believe anymore. The noble fight brings (literally) new blood to its crisis-ridden institutions, wrapped in increasingly identitarian ‘civilizational’ rhetoric. The Western leaders repeatedly call for unity against the Russian threat. Substantive differences with political regimes in Russia, China or Iran obviously exist. However, the representation of the war in Ukraine as an ideological conflict—of democracy against autocracy—works poorly. The inconsistencies of the treatment of Russia, on the one hand, and Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Israel, on the other hand, are too great. And Putin too has been trying to instrumentalize the ‘decolonization’ narrative, presenting the September 2022 annexation of south-eastern regions of Ukraine as a righteous struggle against Western elites who robbed most of the world and continue to threaten the sovereignty and ‘traditional’ cultures of other states. But what can he offer to the Global South beyond recognizing its ‘representatives’ as equal to the Western elites, on the basis of their self-proclaimed identities? The Western elites are trying to save the fraying international order; the Russian elite is trying to revise it to get a better place in a new one. However, neither can clearly explain how exactly the rest of humanity wins from either outcome. This is what ‘multipolarity’ may look like—the multiplication of national and civilizational identities, defined against each other but lacking any universal potential.
Ukraine’s universal significance
The question for Ukrainians is whether being a part of this self-defeating escalation of identity politics is really what we need. This year, there has been a huge surge of events, panels and sessions related to Ukraine, Russia and the war, and a high demand for ‘Ukrainian voices’ in these discussions. Certainly, Ukrainian scholars, artists and intellectuals should be included in international discussions—and not just about Ukraine. The problem, however, is not the quantity but the quality of such inclusion. We have seen how outdated arguments—not least those of primordial nationalism, weirdly combined with teleological claims for the superiority of liberal democracy—are legitimated.footnote13 We can already see the tokenism phenomenon, typical of contemporary identity politics, when a symbolic inclusion of ‘Ukrainian voices’ does not mean revising the structures of knowledge aligned with Western elite interests, beyond sharpening their guilt for appeasing Russia. Furthermore, the formalistic representation of tokenized ‘Ukrainian voices’ helps silence other ‘voices’ from Ukraine that are not so easy to instrumentalize. Are we really to believe that the English-speaking, West-connected intellectuals, typically working in Kiev or Lviv, and who often even personally know each other, represent the diversity of the 40-million-strong nation?
The solution is obviously not to include even more ‘voices’ but to break with the fundamentally flawed logic of escalating national-identity politics. Earlier, a distinctly colonial relation emerged between Western and East European scholars, including Ukrainians. We used to be typically the suppliers of data and local insights to be theorized by the Westerners, who would then reap most of the fruits of international intellectual fame. The sudden interest in Ukraine and the ‘decolonization’ moment offers an opportunity to revise this relationship.
Identity politics is a self-defeating game. Being recognized just for our ‘Ukrainianness’ means we are going to be marginalized again with the next geopolitical realignment. Instead of claiming to be the ‘voices’ of a people we cannot truly represent—that is, be held accountable by them—we should aim to be included on the basis of the contributions we can make to the universal problems facing humanity, in escalating political, economic and environmental crises. In-depth knowledge of Ukraine and the whole post-Soviet region can be especially helpful here because some of the most detrimental consequences of these crises have manifested themselves in our region, in the sharpest and most tragic forms.
For example, how can we discuss the contemporary civic revolutions that are breaking out around the globe at an accelerating speed without Ukraine—the country where three revolutions happened during the life of one generation and brought hardly any revolutionary changes? They embody the contradictions of poorly organized mobilizations with vague goals and weak leadership in the sharpest form; the same problems that populist responses to the Western crisis of political representation have encountered.footnote14 Oppositionist parties come to power amid high expectations of change but typically fail even to start any major reforms. For decades, Ukraine was dominated by the cynical politics of the rival ‘oligarchs’, with record-low levels of trust in government that eventually led to a staggering 73 per cent vote for a tv star, a complete novice in politics. Does it sound familiar? Or what about the relevance of the notorious ‘regional cleavage’ between Ukraine’s ‘Eastern’ and ‘Western’ regions to the concerns about the growing polarization in the United States or post-Brexit Britain? Ukrainians—and, of course, East Europeans in general—have been living with systematically underfunded public-health institutions long before the Covid pandemic made this a widely recognized problem.
These are just some of the topics that would allow a more productive deprovincialization of discussions of Ukraine. It should not make us vulnerable to charges of ‘Ukrainesplaining’—the ungrounded expansion of regional-specific frameworks to contexts which they fit only poorly. During the formative years of the classical social sciences, a handful of countries served as paradigmatic cases to explore fundamental processes. England was a model for discussions of the emergence of capitalism, while France was the foremost example of the dynamics of social revolution. The concepts of Thermidor and Bonapartism helped to illuminate the dynamics of political regimes in many other countries. Italy gifted us with concepts of passive revolution and fascism.
These were the models for the period of capitalism’s progressive expansion and modernization. If now, however, the world is experiencing a multi-sided crisis with no way out, shouldn’t we look for the paradigmatic cases in other parts of the world—those that have been experiencing similar crisis trends, earlier and deeper? For example, the country that jumped from the European agrarian periphery to the cutting edge of space exploration and cybernetics in the space of just two generations—and then, in the life of the next, turned into the northernmost country of the Global South, with the sharpest decline of gdp and a devastating war; the country that flew to the stars and may now be bombed into the Middle Ages. Thirty years ago, we believed that post-Soviet countries would catch up with Western Europe and that Ukraine would be like Finland or France. By the mid-1990s, we tempered our ambitions and aimed rather to catch up with Poland or Hungary. It would be an exaggeration to say that the West may yet be catching up with the self-destruction of the post-Soviet countries; but we could turn out to be your future, not the other way around.
The call to see Ukraine as a paradigmatic case of the far-reaching global crisis requires a completely different perspective on the country itself. It means abandoning the typical post-Soviet teleological liberal-modernization story—which, in the guise of ‘decolonization’, requires us to interiorize a far inferior colonial position. Instead, we need to recognize that we could be proud of once being part of a universal movement. Ukraine was crucial to the greatest social revolution and modernization breakthrough in human history. Ukraine was where some of the most significant battles of the Second World War took place. Millions of Ukrainian civilians and soldiers in the Red Army contributed huge sacrifices to defeat Nazi Germany. Ukraine was a world-renowned centre of vanguardist art and culture. The mass murders and authoritarianism of the state-socialist regime are universally acknowledged; but to exploit them to depreciate the scale of Soviet achievements is to cast Ukrainian labour, blood and suffering as meaningless. Moreover, it allows Putin to continue instrumentalizing Soviet history not only for domestic but for global audiences, who watch the ongoing war not through the eyes of the Western elites but of those whom they have oppressed for centuries. We should claim our past in full to claim a better future. The narrow ‘decolonization’ agenda, reduced to anti-Russian and anti-communist identity politics, only makes it more difficult to voice a universally relevant perspective on Ukraine, no matter how many Ukrainians would sympathize with it.
1 As Mark Beissinger has established on the basis of a mass of quantitative data; see The Revolutionary City: Urbanization and the Global Transformation of Rebellion, Princeton 2022. For ‘deficient revolutions’, see Volodymyr Ishchenko and Oleg Zhuravlev, ‘How Maidan Revolutions Reproduce and Intensify the Post-Soviet Crisis of Political Representation’, ponars, 18 October 2021.
2 Anna Jikhareva and Kaspar Surber, ‘Ukraine Shouldn’t Become a Neoliberal Laboratory’, Jacobin, 17 September 2022; Peter Korotaev, ‘Ukraine’s War Economy Is Being Choked by Neoliberal Dogmas’, Jacobin, 14 July 2022; Luke Cooper, ‘Market Economics in an All-Out-War?’, lse Research Report, 1 December 2022.
3 Aris Roussinos, ‘Did Ukraine Need a War?’, UnHerd, 1 July 2022.
7 Iryna Podolyak, ‘Why Russians Are to Blame for Putin’, Visegrad/Insight, 16 March 2022.
8 Olesya Khromeychuk, ‘Where Is Ukraine?’, rsa, 13 June 2022.
9 George Packer, ‘Ukrainians Are Defending the Values Americans Claim to Hold’, The Atlantic, October 2022.
10 Nataliya Gumenyuk, ‘Russia’s Invasion Is Making Ukraine More Democratic’, The Atlantic, 16 July 2022.
11 us National Democratic Institute, ‘Opportunities and Challenges Facing Ukraine’s Democratic Transition’, August 2022; Iryna Balachuk, ‘Majority of Ukrainians Want Strong Leader, Not Democracy during War—kmis’, Ukrainska Pravda, 18 August 2022.
12 Anton Oleinik, ‘Volunteers in Ukraine: From Provision of Services to State- and Nation-Building’, Journal of Civil Society, 18 September 2018.
13 Alexander Maxwell, ‘Popular and Scholarly Primordialism: The Politics of Ukrainian History during Russia’s 2022 Invasion of Ukraine’, Journal of Nationalism, Memory and Language Politics, vol. 16, no. 1, October 2022.
14 Mark Beissinger, ‘Revolutions Have Succeeded More Often in Our Time, but Their Consequences Have Become More Ambiguous’, ceu Democracy Institute, 8 April 2022.
